The tundra is a
bleak and treeless place. It is cold through all months of
the year Summer is a brief period of milder climates when
the sun shines almost 24 hours a day. It has been called
"the land of the midnight sun". But even the sun can't warm
the tundra much. The short summer lasts only 6 to 10 weeks.
It never gets any warmer than 45 or 50° F. The warmer
weather causes a layer of permafrost, ice that never goes
away in the ground, to melt, creating bogs and shallow lakes
that don't drain. They breed stinging insects, which make
life even in the summer miserable for the inhabitants of the
tundra. The wind blows constantly, whipping around the small
plants.

During the long
winter months the sun barely rises and it is dark for most
of the day. Bitter cold winds scud across the barren
snowscape, exposing high plateaus to barren
ground.

Winter temperatures
don't reach above 20° F and average -20° to
-30°F. Endless hours darkness settle in and the winds
blow even harder. The snow that falls is blown off the high
plateaus and collects in the valleys. Animals hunker down,
able to find only enough food to keep warm.

The tundra is an
unusually cold and dry climate. Precipitation totals 6-10
inches of rain a year, which includes melted snow. This is
almost as little as the world's driest deserts. Coupled with
strong and drying winds, the tundra is an extreme weather
biome. The tundra seems like a wet and soggy place because
the precipitation that falls evaporates slowly, and because
of the poor drainage caused by the permafrost.

You can find the
tundra climate in Köppen's E climate category. The
Estands for ice climates. The average temperature of the
warmest month is below 50° F.

The tundra climate
spans from most of Greenland to parts of Alaska, northern
Canada, and northern Russia. The latitudinal range is
75° N to 60° N. Tundra climates can be found on
the coastal areas of the arctic. The ocean water keeps the
climate from falling to the extreme temperatures found in
the interior of the continents.

The tundra is
freezing for almost all of the year with no traditional
seasons, only a very long winter. Winter conditions in the
tundra exist most of the year, with the exception of a very
short mild season which passes for summer.

The type of
vegetation that grows on the tundra are; grass, shrubs of
willow, sedges, and lichens. The vegetation grows very
slowly because of the hard winter.

The animals in the
tundra put on heavy coats to adapt to the harsh climate.
Examples of this adaptation would be the coats on the
caribou, reindeer, musk ox, arctic hare and the arctic fox.

The Köppen
system of classification would be Dfc. D In Köppen
climate classification stands up for snow climate, f stands
up for sufficient precipitation in all months and c stands
up for fewer than four month with average temperatures over
50° F (1°C).

The average
temperature per year is 16 degrees°F. The highest
temperature can get to 45° F and the coldest
temperature can get to 10° F below 0. That makes it one
of the coldest regions on earth. This biome feels freezing
most of the year.

The average
precipitation per year is more than 18 inches, and most of
it falls as the snow. Average precipitation per season is
4.5 inches. The type of precipitation that falls in this
climate is mostly snow in the winter, and in the summer it
is rain, with occasional snow.

The latitude range
for the tundra is from the arctic circle to 60° to
70° latitude North. Parts of Alaska and northern Canada
contains tundra biome and climates. Tundra climate can also
be found in northern Europe and Russia.